


Conscription

by mmmdraco



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-07
Updated: 2012-10-07
Packaged: 2017-11-15 20:19:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/531289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmdraco/pseuds/mmmdraco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The time has come for Ko Yeong-ha's mandatory military service.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conscription

Yashiro Kiyoharu had only had the vaguest idea about mandatory military service existing in Korea when he met Ko Yeong-ha at the first Hokuto Cup. Years later, after lots of little bits and pieces of interaction at various international tournaments, Ko Yeong-ha had asked him out for drinks and they'd never looked back, but they'd never really looked forward either.

When Ko Yeong-ha had first been informed of the start date of his military service, he hadn't bothered to tell Kiyoharu at first. He'd kept it silent for weeks until a particularly sunny day where they'd found themselves side by side on the large wooden table of sorts in Ko Yeong-ha's backyard just enjoying the warmth on their skin contrasting with the ice pops they were eating. He'd said it so simply: "My conscription is starting soon."

Kiyoharu had lain there for a long moment trying to find patterns in the few wisps of clouds that streaked the sky, but his mouth had started asking questions before he could intend to do so. "What does this mean for us?" He hadn't even realized that he thought of them as an 'us', but he supposed that it was more than just sex and more than just go and included cuddling up and eating ice pops, so there had to be something more to it. He hadn't seen anyone else in the time they'd been seeing each other; almost three years of dinners and drinks and sex and anything else they felt like happening sporadically as they visited each other's countries, but never more than a spred glance at anyone else. It was an easy relationship, but Kiyoharu felt like the rug was suddenly pulled out from underneath him in regards to his views on it. Was Ko Yeong-ha attempting to ask him to wait for him?

"I'm letting you know," Ko Yeong-ha said as he sat up and scratched his head and yawned. "There's nothing I can do about it, so it's up to you to decide what you're going to do. What you _want_ to do."

"I don't know," Kiyoharu had said suddenly and dropped his ice pop on the group and ran back into the house because he didn't want to think about it. 

Ko Yeong-ha had come to him to explain. "I didn't want to wait until I was almost out of the age range because I'll probably be playing some of my best go then. Right now, I'm still young enough that I can adapt to a slightly changed atmosphere when I come back. If I wait until I'm 35, who knows if I'll ever be able to be what I was?"

Kiyoharu had understood, of course, but it was still a shock to realize that he would have liked to have been consulted. And then Ko Yeong-ha had pressed a key into his hand. "This key is to the front door. The day that I'm due to come home, you'll have a choice. Either be here for me to come back to, or don't. I'll deal with either answer and I won't bother you if you're not here."

And Kiyoharu had tucked the key in his wallet for six months, nearly forgotten, as he moved on with his life. Only, he didn't really. He had two dates that were absolutely miserable because his one constant measure of comparison was a red-haired Korean, and then he'd focused on his go to the point where his father, who still didn't approve of his life, had admitted a certain pride in watching him throw himself to thoroughly into any pursuit, even if it was go. That had been enough to pull him away just enough to try to live a normal life.

But normal life meant going out drinking with friends and going out to eat and other things which cost money, so he'd see that key all the time peeking out from between two bills or falling out onto the floor as he took out a stack of money. He'd wanted to stick it on his own keys, but that didn't seem right somehow, so he'd run a cord through the hole in the key with the intention of hanging it on a hook in his room, but it had found its way around his neck instead. 

Then 21 months had passed of Ko Yeong-ha being in the Korean Army. And Kiyoharu was ready with his plane ticket and packed luggage and the key that still hung around his neck and a week and a half of absolutely no obligations.

It had been strange to let himself into the house that was filled with just as much dust and stale air as it was memories and silence. Strange, too, to clean up the dust and air out the rooms and buy a few basic groceries at a local market and stock them in the refrigerator while wallowing in those memories and trying to fend off that silence. But it was finally the day. Ko Yeong-ha was coming home.

It had been 22 months since they had really spoken as several ill-timed games had prevented Kiyoharu from even being able to call the other man. They had exchanged several short messages in the meantime, but there was still a definite language barrier between them. They'd picked up on each other's languages enough to be able to communicate when they were together and had discovered that a simple touch could communicate far more than any word was able, but with that distance between them, it was difficult to commit to words that described feelings. Kiyoharu had only really come to know his own in the last few days when his pangs of loneliness had been worst.

But he was here now. He walked around the house repeatedly with his fingers trailing along the bookshelves he'd dusted carefully, and his eyes skirting past the once-again-shining gleam of awards and pictures frames (one of which he was startled to find a picture of himself in), and finally to the bedroom where he'd presumptuously put his suitcase down on top of Ko Yeong-ha's dresser. It was nearly time for the other man to arrive. 

Once Kiyoharu had been waiting in the bedroom for an hour, he decided something had gone wrong. He'd gotten up and made himself something to eat and had debated about what to do, and had settled on going back to the bedroom and undressing and crawling into the bed and trying not to think.

He'd just made the decision to get up and go and find a bar where he could wallow in the same beer that Ko Yeong-ha had treated him to on their first date or whatever it had been when the man himself had walked through the door with a pensive look on his face and turned immediately to a smile as he took in the scene before him. "You're here."

Kiyoharu sat up and pulled the covers around his hips to fight off the tiny chill he seemed to notice in the air. "You're two hours late," he said with a glance at the clock.

Ko Yeong-ha dropped the bag he was holding and climbed onto the bed and wrapped Kiyoharu in a tight embrace and whispered in his ear, "You idiot. You forgot about the time difference, didn't you?"

And Kiyoharu broke out into something strangely between a laugh and a cry as he clutched the other man just as tightly.


End file.
